The U.S. International Trade Commission announced this week its intention to review a judge's ruling that Taiwanese handset maker HTC had infringed on two of Apple's patents, with a final decision scheduled to arrive by Dec. 6.

HTC this week used nine patents recently obtained from Google to up the ante in its high-stakes intellectual properly infringement war with Apple, slapping the iPhone maker with a third lawsuit while amending a previous complaint to allege broader infringement.

A recent reply brief in Apple's patent infringement case against HTC with the International Trade Commission implies that Google executive Andy Rubin got the inspiration for the Android framework during his time as a low-level engineer at Apple.

Faced with growing inventory due to sluggish sales, the makers of tablets competing with Apple's iPad are said to continue to cut prices in order to reduce losses, potentially sparking an industry-wide price war, according to a new report.

After teasing a "major news announcement" for the company, HTC CEO Peter Chou revealed that it has acquired a $300 million majority stake in audio technology company Beats Electronics, with the first HTC product to implement Beats technology due out later this year.

HTC Chief Executive Peter Chou attempted to calm investors on Friday by calling a recent ruling from the International Trade Commission, which found the Taiwanese handset maker guilty of infringing on two of Apple's patents, a mere "distraction" that will not affect his company's business.

On the heels of news that Microsoft's "Mango" update for Windows Phone 7 has been released to manufacturing, industry sources claim HTC, Samsung and LG will launch the first Mango-based smartphones in September, presumably coordinated to directly compete with Apple's next-generation iPhone.

A US International Trade Commission judge has ruled that two patents held by S3 are being infringed by some of Apple's Mac computers, but invalidated two other patents and stated that Apple's iOS devices are not infringing any of the S3 patents.